“I’ve been calling him Jaws, but it doesn’t really fit. I need to come up with something else.”
“You planning on keeping him?”
I shrug, realizing I hadn’t thought about it that far. “I don’t know. Maybe. If he wants me to.”
“Thanks for dinner.” Jeremy rinses his dish and leaves it in the sink.
“You’re welcome.” I walk over to my painting alcove, moving things around on the top of my new table. I already organized everything, but I’m feeling a little awkward being alone with a now sober hot guy in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. He’s too attractive for comfort.
Jeremy walks over and stops just outside my little painting area. “Sooo, you paint, I guess.”
“Not walls.” I smile to myself, remembering our first conversation. It seems like it was so long ago, but it was only last night.
He laughs. “No, not walls. But what kind of painting? I mean, what style?”
“Depends.” I pick up a new brush I bought in Manhattan before I left and drag it gently over the canvas that’s propped up on the easel. Usually I can already imagine what will be there when I look at a vast expanse of whiteness, but not right now. Not when Jeremy is standing so close. His presence commands all of my attention, even when I’m acting like it doesn’t.
“Modern stuff like Picasso or more traditional like … Renoir?”
“I’ve done some impressionistic stuff. Picasso wasn’t always into cubism, you know.”
“No, actually, I didn’t know. My parents would have loved for me to study art, but I refused.”
“Why?” I look over and see him staring at my blank canvas.
He shrugs. “Dunno. I resisted a lot of things my family put on me.”
“You don’t get along with them?” I put the brush down and open up a tube of paint, checking the color. The red is hard to see in this light. I can already tell I’m not going to be able to paint anything after sundown.
“They’re nice people. I just … I can’t be with them for too long at a time. I feel … stifled. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
I think about my parents and how they were so much older than my friends’ parents. I never felt stifled in their presence. I felt … safe. And loved. “I’d give anything to have my mom and dad with me again.”
“When did they die?” Jeremy takes a step closer, stopping just next to my easel.
“A few years ago. They had me when they were both in their fifties. I’m one of those surprise babies.”
“You can’t be more than thirty years old, though. Did they die young?”
“Yes. In a car accident. Drunk driver.” I try not to look at Jeremy when I say that, but I can’t help it. He was just out in his car after downing half a bottle of whiskey.
His eyes are tearing up and his expression is going dark. “That’s how I lost Laura.”
My throat starts to hurt as the tears try to get out. I won’t let them, though. Now is not the time for crying. Jeremy doesn’t need a crybaby on his hands. He’s too much of one himself, I think.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I sound like a man, my voice is so scratchy.
“I’m sorry about your parents.” His voice is similar to mine. He twists his head away and acts like there’s something very interesting to see out of the dark windows. His hand reaches up to wipe at his face. When he’s looking at me again, his cheek carries a trace of wetness.
“Thanks.” I smile a little, thinking of my mom and dad. “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m glad it happened to both of them at the same time.”
“That does sound a little crazy,” he says, not unkindly.
I sit down on the stool I dragged over from the kitchen earlier and grab another tube of paint to check it out. The blue is also impossible to see in this light; it might as well be black.
“It’s just that they were so in love. If only one of them had died and left the other one, it would have been a big mess. I don’t know how I would have handled it.”
Jeremy nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“They held hands all the time.” I smile, thinking about it. My friends used to make fun of me, and I’d pretend to be embarrassed, but I never was, really. I knew I was lucky then, and after all the unsuccessful attempts I’ve made at trying to find true love, I know it even more now.
“I used to go into their bedroom when I was little, before they were awake in the morning, and I’d find them asleep holding hands.” I shake my head at the memory. “They had something almost no one ever finds. A …”